Song of Songs 8:6-7: Put me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, jealousy is as severe as Sheol; its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, nor will rivers overflow it; if a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, it would be utterly despised. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, in Your relentless... Read more
1 Corinthians 10:16-17: The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread. For centuries in the Western church, this meal was an iconic moment in the liturgy. The high point of the medieval mass was not the common meal... Read more
Idols look like living beings, but, as the Psalms point out, they cannot do anything with the equipment they have. They cannot see and judge, cannot hear and act, cannot smell the soothing aroma of sacrifice, cannot stretch out a hand against Egypt, cannot walk alongside Israel through the wilderness. And, especially, they cannot speak. The living God talks and talks and talks until He’s written a large book, and He’s just getting started, because then He sends His living... Read more
Is an adulterous one-night stand the same action as a night of marital love with one’s wife? If we say Yes, what have we assumed? We have assumed that the determinative dimensions of actions are the physical actions of sex. To an outsider who didn’t know that one woman is a mistress and the other a wife, the action looks identical – same foreplay, same change of blood pressure and temperature, same climax, etc. To put it more starkly: If... Read more
In the preface to his controversial Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Volume 1) , Martin Bernal describes how he moved from Chinese studies, through study of Indo-China to a study of Judaism and Hebrew and finally to comparative studies on Semitic and Hellenic language and culture. He found a large number of remarkable parallels between Hebrew and Greek, and concluded that “this number of parallels is not normal language without contacts... Read more
“The Trinity is a mathematical absurdity in the context of a god limited in his operations to just the four dimensions of length, width, height, and time,” writes Hugh Ross ( The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Latest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God ). To avoid the absurdity, Ross suggests that God exists in multi-dimensional space. As summarized by John Byl ( Divine Challenge: On Matter, Mind, Math & Meaning ), Ross argues that we imagine a... Read more
Over the past century and a half a number of writers have written monographs that attempt to link the letters of Jesus to the seven hurches with the history and culture of each city. The supposed connections are not always persuasive, but some are. Sardis, for instance, though its fortress was situated impregnably on a rock, was twice conquered because of negligence and lack of watchfulness (once by Cyrus, once by Antiochus III). Would the Sardis church have missed the... Read more
In the letter to Sardis, Jesus charges that the church has a “name” of being alive but is dead. At first blush, “name” means merely reputation, but I suspect that Jesus has more in mind. The church is the people of Jesus, who is the “firstborn from the dead” (1:5), the First and Last who was dead and is not living (1:18; 2:8). The church should resemble the Lord of the church, and resembling the Lord of the church means... Read more
Jesus warns that His coming will be like the coming of a “thief” at night (Matthew 24:43; cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 4; Revelation 3:3). This specific image – a thief breaking in at night – comes in part from the law, Exodus 22 gives regulations about how to deal with a thief breaking into a house. It is used only twice in the prophets. Jeremiah 49:9 warns that though thieves would leave a few things behind Yahweh will strip bare,... Read more
Jesus warns that His coming will be like the coming of a “thief” at night (Matthew 24:43; cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 4; Revelation 3:3). This specific image – a thief breaking in at night – comes in part from the law, Exodus 22 gives regulations about how to deal with a thief breaking into a house. It is used only twice in the prophets. Jeremiah 49:9 warns that though thieves would leave a few things behind Yahweh will strip bare,... Read more
Leithart
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In